Redundancy in the Pascal-Suttell Bender-Gestalt scoring system: discriminating organicity with only one design

The eight Bender-Gestalt (B-G) designs scored by the Pascal-Suttell (P-S) system proved to be highly intercorrelated, while the ninth component, the Configuration score, was modestly related to only design one. A factor analysis of the eight designs revealed one significant factor, which was interpreted as reflecting general reproductive accuracy rather than special gestalt properties of the drawings. While the P-S Total score could discriminate between organic (n = 52) and nonorganic (n = 52) clinical outpatient groups with a 74% hit rate, only one design (seven) yielded a 73% discrimination. It was suggested that a quick and reliable method for screening for organicity with the B-G would be to calculate the P-S score for design seven only.